Page 52 of Magic for Nothing

—Enid Healy

The Spenser and Smith Family Carnival, that night

THE BIG TENT WAS PACKED WITH BODIES, so many that even the standing room spaces at the top of the bleachers were filled. There weren’t many kids, either: these were adults and teenagers, following the scent of blood on the wind as they strained to catch a glimpse of a murderer. Whether Savannah had died of natural causes or not didn’t matter to them: they were here looking for excitement, and they were—by God—going to get it.

“One of ours dies, it’s a miracle for business; one of theirs dies, and they run us out of town on a rail,” said Ananta, pushing past me with a Burmese python the length of a car draped around her shoulders. Around us, the townies cheered as Sam took to the flying trapeze. “Watch yourself tonight.”

I nodded, acknowledging her warning before I went back to chucking overpriced candy to bloodthirsty townies. We’d been instructed to take them for every cent they had. With the police investigating Savannah’s death, most of the local parents were going to stay away, thus showing that the desire to protect children sometimes looked a lot like common sense. We’d have one night of incredible crowds, maybe two, and then they’d be gone, melting back into their lives without a second thought for the supposed “murder carnival.” That was bad for long-term business, but meant we needed to make a week’s profits in two nights. We could do that. If we were fast and ruthless, we could do that.

After the tent shows were done, I was supposed to scrub off my makeup, switch my sequins for street clothes, and wander the midway teasing townies into winning plush toys for their significant others. I was looking forward to learning the scam on some of those games. It seemed like a good way to kill an evening, and maybe if enough of the pitch men vouched for me, Emery would let me switch to throwing knives sooner than later.

One nice thing about being considered for a knife-throwing act: I wasn’t unarmed anymore. I’d managed to talk Emery out of a set of throwing knives, which she expected me to chuck at a piece of plywood near my RV, keeping myself in practice. And I was going to do that, because no skill, ever, has been so perfectly developed that it doesn’t need to be maintained. It was just that I was also going to conceal knives all through my clothing, tucking them into the seam folds and natural pockets of the hems. Every knife made me feel a little safer, and a little more like myself.

It was nice to feel like me again. I’d been starting to worry about forgetting who that was.

The fire dancers were taking the floor. Umeko was as bright and vibrant as she’d been the night before: if Savannah’s death had impacted her in any way, she wasn’t allowing it to show in her performance. I paused to admire the artistry of their movements, feeling the heat rise and sparkle in my fingertips. I forced it back down as best as I could, and it must have been pretty decent, because I didn’t catch fire, and neither did any of the remaining candy in my tray. Of which there wasn’t much. A townie boy with more money than sense flagged me down, buying my last two bricks of pink popcorn and my last pack of peanut butter cups, and I was out.

The walk under the bleachers was easier tonight: at least now the way was familiar, and I knew what I was and wasn’t likely to trip over. It would have been even easier in roller skates. If Emery was going to insist I keep playing candy girl, maybe I could convince her to let me do it on wheels. It would add a little flash and glamour to the job, at least as far as the townies were concerned, and impressing them was the whole point of the exercise, right?

I made my way to the supply closet, trading profits and empty space for a fresh load of candy. The bored-looking teenager who counted me in and counted out my restock didn’t talk to me, except in quickly muttered numbers that seemed to matter more to her than made any sense. She didn’t offer, and I didn’t ask. People run away to join the carnival for all sorts of reasons.

The smell of sweet cedar smoke hung in the air outside the supply closet. I took a step toward the big tent, and stopped when the tarp twitched. Someone else was about to come out.

Pure instinct drove me into the shadows next to the wall, melting back and pressing myself flat until I was nothing but shape and potential. There was little light back here, and my sequined top was barely an afterthought in a night filled with flashing rides and the gleaming halogens inside the tent. That’s why, when the door opened, I saw them, and they didn’t see me.

Umeko was the first out, cheeks still bright with heat and eyes sparkling with the joy of the performance. Next out was not one of her dancers, but a townie boy, no more than nineteen, staring at her with enormous moon-calf eyes, like he’d never seen anything so beautiful in his life. It was an understandable reaction—she was a gorgeous woman, and she was in the best of her element in that moment—but something about him seemed off, like a few essential functions had been disconnected before he’d walked out of the tent and into the night with a stranger.

I could have stepped out of my shadow and confronted them. I could have asked where she was going, veiling my demand for information in concern, or in a newbie’s casual violation of personal space. I didn’t. I held myself still until the two of them had passed me, and then I carefully removed my tray and set it flush to the wall, where no one was likely to see or steal it. My costume was glittery, but it didn’t have anything on it that would jingle or chime to announce my presence. This was as good as it was going to get.

Umeko and her boy walked on. And I? I followed them.

She knew the carnival as only someone who’d lived here for years could. Utterly unconcerned, her hand resting on the boy’s arm, she walked down the back of the midway, behind the games, where no one was likely to see or suspect her. She led him past the games, through the shadow of the motionless Scrambler. He didn’t even look at it. That was when I knew something was truly wrong. No townie who’d come to a carnival the night after someone had died there would have been able to walk past the well-publicized site of the body discovery and not at least look at it. Human nature is many things. “Predictable” is first among them.

She led him through the tarp wall and into the bone yard. I hung back for a count of ten, and then went through after them.

The bone yard was dark, the lights turned down to keep from attracting too much townie attention. For a moment, I thought I’d lost them. Then a rectangle of light opened to my left—an RV door being unlatched—and I turned in that direction, trusting logic to win out over coincidence.

There was a sound. It wasn’t a scream, more like a sigh of resignation; a giving up, a giving in, a deciding not to fight any longer. I broke into a run.

The RV where I assumed Umeko had taken her townie boy was dark, the windows covered by sheets of what looked like tin foil. It was large enough for two people, and I remembered belatedly that Umeko had moved out of the space where I was now living because she was sharing living space with her boyfriend. I hadn’t met him yet. Still, if she had a live-in lover, it was even stranger for her to be wandering off with townie boys. I moved closer.

The material blocking the windows wasn’t tin foil. It was some sort of thick, cottony material, like the novelty webbing that Halloween stores sell by the roll. It wasn’t the oddest decorating choice I’d ever seen, especially not in a bone yard, but it still struck me as strange. I didn’t know how many layers of webbing it would take to block a window so completely that even the light couldn’t get through. A lot. I was sure of that much. It would require a lot.

My fingers were heating up again, the magic triggered by my anxiety and confusion. I shook my hands to cool them, taking a step back. If Umeko wanted to have a threesome with a townie boy—or wanted to cheat on her boyfriend—that was no business of mine. All I could do by interrupting them was make an enemy I couldn’t afford, not while I was still in my trial period with the show. Umeko and her fire dancers were a main attraction. I was a scruffy knife-thrower from a dead carnival. There was no contest.

Someone inside the RV squeaked. It was a small, tight, pained sound that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Maybe there was no contest, but sometimes, interrupting is the right thing to do. Emery would understand, especially when Umeko yelled for backup and everyone saw how young the townie boy was. Umeko was a grown woman. She should have known better.

Fingertips hot, I approached the RV and rapped my knuckles against the door. The sound was muffled somehow, like the room on the other side was swaddled in some sound-deadening substance. There was no answer. I counted to thirty before knocking again.

“Umeko? Hi, it’s Annie,” I called, in my brightest, perkiest cheerleader voice. “Are you in there?”

“What do you want, new girl?” There was something subtly wrong about Umeko’s response. She sounded like the room, like she was speaking through some thick, absorbent material. “Go away. I’m busy.”

“Oh, see, that’s sort of what I want,” I said, still bright, still perky, still trying to ignore the growing heat in my hands. “I was watching you dance tonight, and you dropped a couple of your big feathers. The flame-retardant ones? I know those are expensive, like, twenty bucks each, so I grabbed them for you.” I was lying through my teeth, but that didn’t matter. Once she opened the door, I would grab the townie boy, and we’d be out of here.

“Leave them with costuming.”

“But these are yours. Didn’t you pay for them with your own money?” I knocked again, dialing up the obnoxiousness. “Come on, just let me give them to you. I’ll go as soon as I give them to you.” Let her think I was a fawning sycophant, trying to curry favor with someone above me at the show. Let her think I was too stupid to take a hint. Let her think whatever she wanted, as long as she opened the damn door.